Jumping The Gun
by monkey-in-hell
Summary: Set post episode eight.
1. Chapter 1

A/N This was supposed to be a drabble but it just kept growing. And possibly got a bit darker along the way.

Jumping The Gun

He slid the key into the lock and, with one last glance around, carefully and quietly let himself inside, the dark welcoming him and his matching his mood. He closed the door firmly behind him, resting his back against it in an attempt to shut out a world that was no longer his; a world that no longer revered him as the 'Manc Lion' or relied on him to be the sheriff, upholding the law in a wild town and with wilder means. A world that now only questioned his integrity and his character and didn't like what it saw. The tight feeling in his chest – the one that he knew wasn't the result of the brief ascent upstairs or the long hours he'd spent sneaking around prior to his arrival – didn't lessen with his new surroundings. Coming here might not have been such a good idea but he couldn't exactly go back to his own address - that was the first place they'd look for him. Well, maybe the second but he certainly couldn't go back to the station, his home from home, either. Emotions were running high and everyone there thought he'd shot her.

The awful truth was that he _had_ shot her. And every time he closed his eyes he could see it happening all over again in painful techni-coloured slow motion; unable to stop it, unable to fully comprehend exactly how it had happened.

The tightness gripped at him again and he breathed deeply and slowly in a futile effort to shake it off, an unspoken mantra accompanying his breaths: it wasn't his fault. The actual shooting itself certainly wasn't but the events leading up to it weren't so clearly cut. His motives prior to the incident weren't as justifiable as they could have been. The revelation that he'd been wrong about her all along, courtesy of that cassette and her two-fingered response to it, had soured both his thoughts and his mood. She might as well have actually stuck a bloody knife in his back. He'd found it difficult to look at her without the contents of that tape whispering in his ear that she couldn't be trusted. It had only been the desperation in her reply when he'd blown off her fruitcake-like claims about the future that had stopped him suspending her there and then. That and the fact that he was crazy about a crazy woman, even one who wanted nothing more than to be as far away from him as possible. It hadn't been so much Jenette's sloppy accusation that Alex was involved in the heist that had twisted the knife further but what she had, dishonestly, represented. He had been wasting his time with Alex; all of the over obvious lechery, all of the quiet yearning - it was pointless. It always had been; worse - he'd always known it. So when Alex's detailed knowledge about the bullion job – the one in which he desperately needed a result in order to end the corruption that was eating away at the force - had emerged it had all come to a stormy head. Fuelled by anger and hurt, unsure if he'd ever be able to trust her again and with the rest of the team seeming to have already fallen under her spell, he'd responded the only way he knew how, the result condemning him to his fate - and her to hers.

It hadn't come as much as a surprise that she'd been bloody right about the blag; blind fury probably would have been the better term for what he'd felt when it had become clear that he'd sent everyone in the wrong direction and they'd had to high tail it back to King Douglas Lane and a deservedly smug Alex Drake. To his shame at that point he'd been silently cursing her as he'd swerved the car around every corner and had raced down every street. She had an uncanny knack about those sort of things - all that psychological guff had paid off more often than not and he should have known that. In hindsight he could see now that he had let his attraction to her interfere with their working relationship; if the bullion job hadn't been imminent he probably would have found something else to attack her with for all those hurtful words he'd heard on the tape. He hadn't really needed to overhear her conversation with that bent copper, the one who'd threatened to shoot her and the one whose body had mysteriously vanished from the morgue, to know that her only motivation was to stop the heist at all costs. And she'd paid too high a price.

It didn't help but he could see it all so clearly now. PC Summers must have seen or heard something about the blag whilst at Lafferty's site and had been bumped off accordingly; somehow Alex had worked that much out, had recognised the link between Summers' murder and Operation Rose. He just hadn't trusted her enough to believe her. Or she hadn't trusted him enough to confide in him until it was too late. Given everything they'd been through together with Mac it was a hard fact to swallow; it was even harder to acknowledge how the trust between them had slid so easily into mistrust. Though most of what had happened was obvious, providing there wasn't some kind of cover up being put into place, what he couldn't prove was that shooting her had been an accident. His parting shot to her in CID was now being thrown back in his face and he couldn't deny what he'd said, there were enough witnesses to the contrary. He was entirely reliant upon her and the sooner she woke up from that bloody coma and told everyone that it was an accident the better.

_If_ she woke up. The doctor's words swam around his head, the prognosis not exactly hopeful and certainly not reassuring in any way.

Forcing himself away from the door he took a step forward into the flat above Luigi's: Alex's flat. In truth there were other places he could have went, there was a whole country's worth, but he had persuaded himself that this was the last place they'd look for him; it was somewhere quiet where he could lick his wounds and had absolutely nothing to do with needing to be close to her. After his close call at the hospital he'd called in a favour or two and his Quattro, his beloved car, was currently being driven up North – it was too distinctive to keep and hopefully it would take some of the heat away with it.

Using his memory to navigate around the flat in the dark he headed towards the kitchen, dropping his key onto the counter a little too loudly, the noise echoing into the gloomy emptiness and reverberating through him. He stared at the area onto which he'd thrown the small metal object in quiet misery. He'd had a key to her flat for months now, in fact he couldn't even remember when or why he had acquired it, but she'd never once batted an eyelid over it. Because she'd trusted him.

God, there it was again: the guilt. He needed a drink. No, he needed an entire brewery. Groping his way across the counter, searching amongst the shadows, he came across a spirit shaped bottle; it wouldn't be whiskey – she only ever drank his – but it would be a start. If he could drink enough to numb everything, enough to blot it all out, he might even get some sleep. Grabbing the bottle he headed towards the living room, dropping heavily onto the sofa and sinking quietly into it. Unscrewing the cap to the bottle he took a long slug, the sharp warmth and familiar texture leading him to conclude that it was vodka he was imbibing. If this was what she drank whilst she was talking to herself and that bloody machine of hers then no wonder she never made much sense. It was like drinking meths. Taking another quick sip he rested his head tiredly against the back of the sofa. His eyes easily fluttered shut, the day's events finally catching up with him, but it only took the briefest of moments before images of Alex lying on the cold hard ground, the inside of her white jacket marred by crimson blood, slashed viciously at the blessed darkness behind his eyelids.

Eyes shooting open he sat forward and took another long swig before placing the bottle onto the table with a pained sigh. Oblivion wasn't going to be as easy to find as he'd hoped. He could run for the rest of his life but he was never going to be able to escape. Shrugging off his coat, preparing to drink however much it took to pass out right there on the sofa, he searched his pockets for his lighter but his fingers brushed against something else instead. Carefully extracting the small item, smoothing his thumb against the leather cover as he did so, he threw his coat to the other end of the sofa. In his hand was her warrant card, the one she had slammed down so defiantly – when she'd been so full of fire, so full of life – onto his desk. The one he'd demanded from her in a fit of fury because he'd been so sure that she, like everyone else, had betrayed him. His chest constricted once more.

Christ, how had he ever doubted her? Even Ray, not known for his glowing reviews of Alex, hadn't believed it for a second. The Sergeant's loyalty towards her had been unwavering, just as it had once been for his Guv but not any more; the look of bitter disappointment Carling had shot his way as he'd radioed for an ambulance had been just as firm. It had been on the faces of Shaz and Chris too, he'd seen when either of them had dared to glance up at him whilst clumsily tending to their wounded DI. Their unified show of dismay had been one of the few things to remain with him as the rest of the world had started to fade away and he'd only been able to stand there, gun in hand, rooted to the spot with sheer incomprehension at what had happened, at what he'd done, until all he could see was her. All he could still see was her.

Reaching for the bottle he knocked back some more of its contents, letting the alcohol burn a path all the way down his throat and into his empty stomach. He'd feel like shit in the morning but he didn't think he could feel any worse than he did right then. With his other hand he flipped open her warrant card but in the darkness it was difficult to see the photograph that was held inside. As the blinds in the flat were currently drawn - Alex must have neglected them that morning in her haste to leave - he took a risk and switched on the lamp beside him, a sudden urge to see her overruling common sense in much the same way that it had led him to her flat. And he really needed to see her; not lying in a pool of blood or unconscious in a hospital bed but as she once was. But casting his eyes down to the ID Alex only stared accusingly back at him and that ache in his chest tightened once more.

Glancing away he tried not to think about the possibility of never seeing her again or the fact that it had been his greatest wish just a day or so ago. And he tried not to believe that he might have already lost her because there was no guarantee she would ever forgive him if she did wake up. Sure, she might forgive him for shooting her, not that it would make him feel any better about it, but would she ever forgive him for doubting her? He might, if he was lucky, get her back as a colleague but that closeness, that connection he was so sure they shared, might have been severed for ever. He swirled the alcohol around the bottle, watching intently yet absently as the liquid curled around the glass. Maybe if he had let her in like she'd asked, maybe if he had dropped his guard just a little further, this wouldn't have happened. He sighed at himself, at the stupidity of such a thought. He'd always known, right from the moment she'd first strolled into Luigi's in that leather jacket, her place in his dreams already assured by that point, exactly what he'd wanted from her but he'd also known that it would never happen. Could never happen.

He swigged from the bottle once more, his gaze then wandering aimlessly around the room until it fell upon the audio tape that had instigated the rot between them. It was lying there on top of the television where it had obviously been abandoned in a rage that was probably not dissimilar to the one he had been in when he had returned the tape to her. At times they were so alike it both worried and thrilled him. He eyed the object warily from the sofa; she had claimed that it had been planted on his desk in order to drive a wedge between them and it had certainly worked. That tape held the worst words he'd ever heard her say, awful bruising sentences that had knocked him for six. It contained things he never wanted to hear her say again. Yet at the same time it held her voice; the voice of a posh mouthy tart that he'd give anything to hear right then.

Placing both the bottle and her warrant card on the table he stood slowly and walked towards the television. He hesitated only briefly before picking up the tape and heading towards the stereo and placing the cassette into the machine. Again he hesitated, his finger hovering over the various buttons for a second or two, but he quickly gave in and pressed what he thought was the 'play' button but sent the tape into reverse instead. Muttering a curse he jabbed at the buttons again, this time hitting the intended target and the tape stopped dead. Rubbing briefly at his eyes he refocused on the buttons and successfully set the tape away.

"I've got to get out of here. I have to get away from him. I hate this place. Maybe Summers can help but Hunt must never know."

He closed his eyes once again, the pain striking just as deeply second time around but keeping those images of her plying prone on the floor at a distance. Though it would never justify what had happened, though it couldn't erase the fact that he'd thought she was bent, hearing the tape again reminded him that she didn't feel anything for him. As badly as he wanted her she only desired to escape him. She hadn't denied it either; she'd stood there in his office and lied right to his face, all that nonsense about the future and having to get back there. In a strange way listening to the tape again made him feel ever so slightly better, like pressing down on a wound to disperse the pain; it was still there, it just didn't present itself so acutely.

"He's my only light, my only constant, my lifeline in this dark world. My Gene Hunt. I don't know how, or even if, I could have survived this long without him."

Gene's eyes shot open, his legs swaying uneasily beneath him. He stared down at the tape, which was still whirring happily away, for a beat before lurching for the button marked 'stop'. He didn't need to rewind the tape and hear her say that again; the middle sentence and the way her voice had softened considerably as she'd spoken would be imprinted on his mind for him to savour for the rest of his life but right then it was busy casting doubt on everything he'd presumed about her from the previous seconds' worth of tape. Guilt held him tightly once more though it didn't stop him from setting the tape away again.

"But he must never know how I feel... How I feel about him. Because I... I can't stay here. I can't. I mustn't. However much I want to at times. I have to keep fighting him... I mustn't give in to him because I have to get home. I have to get back to Molly."

As the tape played on blankly he stared at the machine with a torrid mixture of disbelief, regret and guilt. Scrabbling with the buttons he alternately forwarded and played the tape, desperately searching for more from her but there was nothing else on it. Just silence. The same silence he'd received from her at the hospital. He backed away slowly until one leg hit the coffee table and he stopped dead, his eyes still on the machine, her confession playing over and over in his head. His brain maliciously supplied a flash of her slumping to the ground to accompany the soundtrack. The words, 'it was an accident' suddenly seemed woefully inadequate. And he knew he'd lost a damn sight more that he'd thought he'd had.

Turning around he spied the bottle of vodka and snatched it up, forcing as much as he could down his throat as he edged towards the sofa. Throwing himself onto the black and white material he took one last slug from the bottle and quietly turned off the lamp.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N So much for this being a one shot - I'm a big fat liar and easily talked around.

Jumping The Gun

Chapter Two

Gene frowned at the moustachioed man down the other end of the corridor and neatly backtracked a few steps to skulk around the corner, only edging forwards slightly to cast a second, closer, look at proceedings. He hadn't expected to see DS Carling at the hospital. He hadn't expected to be able to just waltz in either, especially after yesterday's little visit, but was Ray there waiting for him? His frown turned to a scowl at the thought that he might be so predictable and then only deepened further as the thought went on to suggest that Ray might be there to protect Alex - and from the Gene Genie himself. They were quick enough to think he had meant to shoot Alex but surely they wouldn't think he'd try again. Would they? Or, and his heart and his spirits rose wildly at the alternative, his scowl dissolving into a pout, had Alex come around?

A way down from Alex's room and distracted by a young nurse, Ray would be easy enough to bypass and certainly the wrong person to be looking out for Alex. That had always been his job anyway, albeit one in which he had failed miserably yesterday. Seizing his chance he walked casually out into the corridor, his presence thankfully remaining unnoticed and with a few long strides he was out of the corridor and at his destination. He pulled the curtain aside and vanished behind it, careful to ensure that the material was returned to its original state once he had safely passed through. He held onto the flimsy material and his breath for longer than was necessary, his heart pounding in his chest so hard that he thought it might actually succeed in its bid for freedom, before he finally turned around because until he did so he could hold onto the hope that she was awake. He'd spent the entire length of his furtive journey to the hospital, with his head down and the collar of his coat up, convincing himself that he'd find her sat up in bed, that her eyes would flash with anger at the sight of him and her mouth would volley a barrage of abuse at him for the way he'd treated her. He'd have even been happy to hear her spout all that rubbish about the future again - he was used to her fruitcake-like ways, he even kind of liked it, up to a point anyway. He'd have taken anything she'd have thrown at him so long as she was back in this world with him, exactly where she belonged - despite his earlier attempts, both deliberate and unintended, to exclude her from it.

He could only stand there silently once he'd spun round, rooted to the spot for the second time in two days, enclosed once more in a world that only consisted of her, and feeling just as lost and as uncertain. She was still lying there, right where he'd hastily left her the day before; still so pale and lifeless and the sight was a painful reminder of both everything he'd done and everything he stood to lose. His heart gave up all its attempts at freedom, settling uncomfortably instead in the pit of his stomach and in the process setting off another wave of nausea.

It had been with him for most of the morning, that swirling and unsettled feeling low in his belly. He could blame it all on the booze but it would be a lie because for a few sweet seconds when he'd first woken up, her scent infused on her sheets and filling his nostrils, and all knowledge of what he'd done blissfully mislaid, he'd felt just fine. For an all too brief moment of time he'd had the pleasure of waking up in her bed believing that his greatest desire had come true until his stupid head had reminded him of his even stupider mistakes. He'd had to quickly sit up on the bed at that point, the nausea roughly circling his stomach as the memory of the last couple of days had violently surfaced; the tape, the argument and the betrayal, the heist and the shooting, the hospital visit and the drinking in her flat, the tape – they'd rampaged through his head as thoroughly as they'd trampled all over his stomach.

Fighting back the sickly sensation in his guts he forced himself to move forwards, making his way slowly around the bed. There was a chair at the other side, one of those beige plastic things that were as uncomfortable to sit on as their appearance warned they would be and his back quietly grumbled at the intention. He hadn't been able to sleep on the sofa; it wasn't large enough for his frame and he just couldn't get comfortable on it at all, waking up every time he managed to fall asleep. Of course it had really been the dark dreams that had plagued him every time he'd closed his eyes that had kept him awake - and had prompted him to abandon the sofa altogether. His much sought after oblivion hadn't really materialised: there'd only been dreams of her falling to the ground, all bloody and betrayed, her eyes lingering on his before finally closing forever; there'd been dreams of her calling out to him in the dark but no matter how hard he'd searched he couldn't find her; dreams that had jerked him awake and left him with only the desperate gut-wrenching feeling that he had lost her forever. The guilt at shooting her had been difficult enough to cope with but he'd had his anger - at her, at her response when he'd put himself on the line and asked her for the truth – to help him take some of the edge off it, to give some reasoning, however slight, to the events that had led up to it. But the tape, just as it had done on its first public airing, had changed everything.

He'd been unable to get the rest of the contents of that tape out of his head. Her words, her confession, had curled around his chest where it had remained thus far, in turns comforting and tormenting him. He hoped that she'd known he'd never got to the end of that tape before he'd lashed out at her. Logically it fit better with what had subsequently happened, and she was a bloody psychologist as she was so keen on pointing out at every opportunity, but the idea that she thought he had heard it all and simply didn't care about her or her feelings was refusing to leave him. It was still there now, twisting and tugging away at his heart at every possible opportunity and only nourishing the guilt that he knew wasn't going to go away anytime soon. Everything he had said and done to her seemed infinitely worse – and ultimately less salvageable – if she believed that he didn't care.

His back - and his heart - aching he'd given sleeping up on the sofa at around three in the morning. He'd sat there for a while, finishing off the last of the vodka, letting his guilt grow and mutate into various other guises, until he had eventually found himself heading towards her bedroom. He hadn't intended to sleep there – he hadn't been sure what he was going to do. There'd only been the desperate need to have her close to him and he had let it guide him down onto her bed. It should have been more difficult to fall sleep there than on the sofa but he'd drifted off easily enough, with his face pressed against her pillow and her sheets beneath him he could almost believe she was there with him. And his dreams had taken a more pleasant direction too: there she'd only fallen into his arms, full of life and forgiveness; there she'd whispered all the words he'd ever wanted to hear as she'd joined him in her bed. Dreams that had still left him with a sense of loss, magnified by the illusion of actually having her to begin with.

Carefully manoeuvring the plastic chair, taking care to lift its legs off the floor and avoid that annoying - and alerting - scraping sound they would make, he located it closer to her bed. With a quick reassuring glance at the still undisturbed curtains he lowered himself onto the chair, his gaze coming to rest on her once again. He'd lasted less than an hour in her flat, once he'd finished throwing up in the bathroom, before deciding to come back to the hospital. It had been a long hour, too. He'd sat on her sofa for a while, quietly smoking, wondering if she'd bollock him for doing so when she found out and hoping she would pull through to do just that. He'd paced the floor of her living room for a good while, trying not to remember how Mac had connived to have everything in her flat upturned in an effort to divide them and of how unwavering his trust in Alex had been at that point - and of how easily it had then been lost. He'd slumped onto the coffee table towards the end, his head in his hands and staring at his boots as he'd wondered what kind of cowboy shot the damsel in distress and almost let the bad guys get away.

At various points he'd tried to think of himself, of what he could to do to get out of the mess he was in. He should have been looking for that bloody tart Jenette for a start but his thoughts had only returned to Alex: she was the only woman he wanted to think about, she was the only woman he wanted and an entire night had passed since he'd seen her, numerous hours during which time anything could have happened to her - good or bad. And he'd needed to know: he'd needed to know that she was okay; he'd needed to know that they were going to be okay. But now that he was here, now that he knew, there was only a sense of despair, swallowing him from the inside out, that neither desire had been met - or seemed likely to be met any time soon.

His eyes travelled away from her face, following the curve of her shoulder down to her arm which, like its opposite, lay above the sheets, ending his journey on her hand. Tentatively he reached out towards the back of her left hand, swallowing at the lump that formed in his throat when he finally made contact with the warm skin that lay there; skin finally touching skin and no gloves to get in the way. She'd held the same hand limply and uselessly against the hole he had made in her side, her fingers quickly becoming marked with blood; she'd once held the same hand against his cheek, her fingers tenderly brushing across his face when he'd rescued her from a cold death; and she'd once curled the same fingers of that hand into a fist before landing a rather impressive punch on his chin. Now it only rested limply in his own hand.

"Bolly," he whispered into the stuffy hospital air, the anguish in his voice blatantly obvious and he was thankful that there was no one else around to hear him. But she didn't seem to hear it, or him, either. It was Sam Tyler who had once told him that it was important to keep talking in these type of situations; that the patient could hear or perhaps somehow sense what was going on around them. It was just the kind of nonsense theory that Alex would probably subscribe to though not one that he thought held any water. But he was desperate - more than he had been the day before. He had more to lose now; today he knew that all the time he had spent convincing himself that she was only interested in him as an officer, not as a man, she had been busy fighting her own feelings for him.

"Bols," he tried again, his gaze returning to her face as he gripped her hand tighter, "Bols, wake up." She didn't respond to his command, as rebellious when unconscious as she was when awake. So bloody stubborn, she was probably doing it deliberately. Christ, he hoped she was. "Please wake up," he begged quietly, his thumb beginning to caress the back of her hand, hoping she would hear the sincerity of his plea. It was unsettling to not get some kind of a response from her; he couldn't even begin to count the number of times he had wished for such an occurrence, never once suspecting that it would feel so wrong, never once expecting it to ever happen.

He scrubbed tiredly at his face with his free hand, wanting desperately to touch hers too, to see if the skin that lay across her cheeks was as soft as he'd always believed it to be. He managed to stop himself from acting on the impulse - he was probably taking enough of a liberty just being there and holding her hand. A part of him, the part that had been feeding off, and in turn adding to, the guilt, whispered evilly into his ear that she'd pull her hand away in disgust if she knew that he was the one holding onto it like it was some kind of lifeline. They were the sort of demons that would no doubt drive him from London just as he'd felt compelled to escape Manchester. He briefly thought of Sam again, the circumstances vaguely familiar. Sam had went racing off without him the day he'd died because they'd clashed over their differing methods. He had given the younger man more than enough slack over the years but he'd put his foot down that last time, exerting his authority and warning Sam to step back; just like Alex, Sam had insisted on doing things his way and, just like Alex, he had been bloody right too though with even direr consequences. He hoped she didn't end up like Sam.

"Alex..." he started softly, the name rolling more gently off his tongue than any other moniker he'd ever bestowed upon her. He paused for a moment, searching for the right words and wondering if they actually existed, and if they did would she even want to hear them? "I'm sorry," he said slowly. He hadn't told her that yesterday. He'd just shouted at her - out of self preservation, out of anger, out of fear. No wonder she hadn't responded. Yet there still wasn't any sign of improvement with his altered approach and the lack of a response punched him low in the gut. Yesterday he had needed her to wake up so she could tell everyone the truth and get his neck off the chopping block. Today he only wanted her to wake up. "For everything," he added on quietly, aware that those four words couldn't really make amends. He held his breath once more, searching her face for any indication that she'd heard him but she remained deathly still. She wasn't going to come back for him, no matter what he said - how had he ever thought that she would? Exhaling a long deep sigh, he finally accepted that it was over.

He couldn't stay there with her, nor could he continue to sneak in unnoticed just to see her, not without getting caught at some point. A life on the run didn't exactly appeal either; never knowing what had happened to her would slowly destroy him, no matter how far away he ran. The only alternative was to put himself at the mercy of the very system he'd spent his working life trying to uphold. The very same system that he knew was littered with flaws and inconsistencies. The same system that would likely make an example out of him, chewing him up and spitting him out into the hands of the numerous pieces of scum he'd put away. At the very least he'd be out of the force; squeezed out via early retirement or some urgent reshuffling in light of all the corruption. It didn't really matter what he did next; his life was never going to be the same anyway if she didn't wake up. He'd still be left with inescapable feelings of regret, guilt, despair and loss.

Lifting her hand he placed the palm against his stubbled cheek and held it there, his hand covering hers completely. The sensation made his chest ache but he savoured the contact between them - it would have to sustain him for some time. He lingered there for a long moment, a small part of him still hoping that she would react to his touch, that she'd come back to him. She didn't stir, no matter how badly he wanted her to. The guilt that was still eating away at him quite happily let him think that she was punishing him further and he struggled to regain his composure. With his free hand he searched his coat pocket and extracted her warrant card; it didn't belong to him, in much the same way that she didn't belong to him and never had done. Slowly removing her hand from his face he slipped the ID into her palm, curling her fingers around it and then gently placing her hand back down onto the bed before letting go of her for the last time. If she woke up at least she'd know that he'd been there. "Bye, Alex."

He rose slowly and reluctantly, careful not to catch the chair as he moved. With his legs, and his heart, heavy he slowly and reluctantly stepped away from her, as lost in this world as she now was to him. If Ray didn't spot him on the way out he would just keep on walking. The cold November air would surround him like an old enemy, pushing and jeering at him as he persevered his way through it. He had no idea where he would go; somewhere his reputation didn't precede him would be preferable - he was no longer any of the things he'd once claimed to be. He finally drew his gaze away from her and headed towards the curtains, slipping easily through them once more, and back out into the real world.

"Gene...?'


	3. Chapter 3

A/N Thanks for all the reviews and stuff - much appreciated.

Jumping The Gun

Chapter Three

"Guv?"

He took half a step forward even as the name followed him down the corridor, a wild impulse to carry on as if he hadn't heard a thing, as if he wasn't the person in question, bolting through his veins; fight or flight, he supposed. There was a sharp turn to the right just a few steps ahead of him and if he could make it that far he could start running. He could run like a guilty man, like a criminal - common or otherwise. He stopped dead. His legs still felt heavy beneath him and he doubted he would get very far if he tried to run. Besides, Ray had far more useful emotions to work with than he did and would catch him up in no time. He sighed quietly. Perhaps he should have been more careful or more interested in being careful; stepping out into the corridor without a second glance, and with his head slightly bowed, his thoughts had been somewhere else entirely - somewhere dark and disturbing, a place that he wasn't sure he would ever be able to escape from completely. Not getting caught whilst leaving Alex's room hadn't been a priority. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and held his head higher before turning round to face the other man.

Ray, still hovering down the other end of the corridor, met his gaze questioningly, the surprise at the sight of his boss at the hospital plainly visible. Maybe the ruse of sending his car northwards had worked and everyone thought the Manc Lion had retreated back to Manchester; though maybe not if DS Carling had been hanging around the hospital all morning. The nurse that Ray had been busy chatting up took the opportunity to make her own escape, dipping her head slightly as she walked towards Gene, as if it was high noon and she was caught up in the middle of a showdown, before disappearing into Alex's room. Gene watched silently as Ray took a few steps towards him, his gaze at first following the back of the nurse as she slipped out of view and then swinging back to him as the Sergeant came to a stop and finally spoke: "What were you doing in there?"

"Dancing the bloody fandango - what do you think I was doing in there?" Gene snapped quickly. He wasn't going to admit to any of the things he'd said or done whilst he'd been at Alex's side; that was between him and her - not that she'd heard his apology or felt his hand in hers or reacted in any way to his presence. He could barely admit to himself that he'd somehow thought he'd be the one to rouse her, that she would miraculously awaken at the sound of his voice or his touch. He swallowed down the lump in his throat at the thought of her lying there, so helpless and still, lost to him, and forced his attention onto Ray instead. It was only then that he realised exactly what Ray had been insinuating. It had been there in the question itself, in the Sergeant's tone as he'd asked, and he'd missed it but he could now see it in Ray's face too: the doubt, the suspicion, the mistrust. It was the same way his Sergeant looked at every lying piece of scum they come across before he laid into them with a few swift punches. He briefly wondered if Ray wanted to smack him about too but the other man kept his distance - and also that look of disbelief. He scowled at Ray, at the suggestion that he was only at the hospital to hurt Alex.

It was disconcerting the way he had fallen so heavily, and so easily, from the pedestal that he'd fought so hard to get onto in the first place, though it wasn't unbelievable. He had treat Alex in a similar way, had misconstrued the 'evidence', had seen something in it that wasn't there and what was worse, he had then acted on it. The memory of her begging him to believe her, to trust her, crashed into his head, making his own disappointment at Ray's actions seem small in comparison. And the evidence against him was pretty damning: he had threatened to kill Alex and had then shot her the very next day, with the only witness capable of exonerating him lying comatose. He doubted Jenette, if she was ever found, would come clean and incriminate herself just to help him out. He suddenly wished that he'd taken his chances with a life on the lam because he had very little hope of getting off any charges that were brought against him, especially if even his closest allies thought that not only had he intended to carry out his threat but that, having failed, he had then tried to finish off the job. That thought dug in a little deeper, stretching out the concept as it maliciously wormed its way into his head and reminded him of one, now painfully obvious, fact: it was Alex who was his closest ally. It was Alex who he had taken into his confidence and worked closely with in an attempt to bring down Mac. It was Alex whose loyalty he had never questioned when it had become apparent that there was a mole working within his team. It was always Alex. Or it had been up until he'd heard that bloody tape. Now he had no one.

Ray had the gumption to look suitably admonished, years of loyalty finally making an appearance and chipping away at the misleading sight of his Guv standing over Alex with a smoking pistol in his hand and doing absolutely nothing to help her. His eyes dropped to the tiled floor at his feet before he shook his head slightly and looked Gene square in the eye once more. "Jesus, Guv. I can't -"

The Sergeant was saved from elaborating further by the reappearance of his new female friend and Gene wondered what the other man had been about to say. That he couldn't believe he'd meant to shoot their DI? Or that he just couldn't let him leave the hospital, that he had to arrest him and take him down to the station? Unhappily, he suspected it would have been the latter rather than the former though it didn't really matter - he'd accepted his fate as easily as Ray and the rest of his colleagues had accepted that he could shoot Alex in cold blood. He would fight of course, he would do everything he could to prove his innocence to his peers, but shooting Alex was a memory that would never leave him and whatever punishment he received for his perceived wrong-doings it was never going to surpass the sterling job his own guilty conscience had been carrying out ever since he'd fired his gun. His scowl fading a little he followed Ray's gaze towards the young woman.

"Sorry," the nurse apologised with a quick smile for Ray. "She's awake."

Sheer utter relief flooded through him at the news, a tidal wave that was so strong it threatened to knock him off his feet. Alex was awake. She was going to be okay. It was the very thing he'd been hoping for when he'd arrived at the hospital and he revelled quietly, and secretly, in the happiness that had now joined his relief, letting it wash away some of the blackness that had shrouded him and the scowl from his mouth. For the first time in almost a day, standing there in the corridor, there was no guilt crushing his chest, no despair darkening his thoughts, just blessed wonderful unblemished joy. A smile tried to escape from deep within him, his mouth raising slightly at both corners before he caught it and reined it back in, carefully schooling his face into a neutral expression, a sturdy pout in place.

"She's asking for Gene," the nurse said, her attention only briefly swaying to the man in question before returning to Ray. "Quite insistently."

Gene glanced back to Ray, feeling entirely vindicated by both of the statements and wanting to share it, rather pointedly, with the other man. Ray, to give him his dues, returned the gaze steadily, a trace of uncertainty still there, but made no attempt, either verbally or physically, to stop him going back into Alex's room. He moved slowly out of the corridor without a word, letting his disappointment in his Sergeant's wavering loyalty fade away - after all, if the other man hadn't stopped him he'd have been long gone by now and without ever knowing that she'd woke up. And it didn't matter what Ray or anyone else thought - Alex would set them all straight now. He kept the smile that had been itching to escape since the nurse had uttered those wonderful words at bay as his heart started to thump wildly in his chest again, imbued once more with that desperate need to force its way out through his ribcage and leg it in the other direction. There was still a sense of uncertainty at what lay behind the now parted curtain ahead of him; though he now knew that she was awake, he still didn't know just what kind of a reaction he would receive from Alex. He'd speculated that if he'd come here and found her awake then she might have had a go at him for being a lousy shot or, most likely, taken great delight in being proven right about the heist and then had a go at him for not trusting her. He'd even accepted the possibility that she might do all of those things but back then, when he'd been taking refuge in her empty flat and tortured by thoughts of her not pulling through, he had been more concerned with finding her awake than worrying too much about what would happen after that. His mouth turned downwards again.

Now that there was a happier ending on the horizon the guilt that had been his constant companion for the last day or so made a resurgence, breaking through his brief, but sunny, respite with spectacular ease, and whispering in his ear that she - like Ray, like everyone else - might believe that he'd intended to shoot her. It was a ridiculous notion; he hadn't saved her from a bullet to the head just so he could then shoot her himself. And unlike the others, she'd been there; she had to know that it was an accident, that he'd ducked to avoid being shot himself and in the process had somehow hit her instead of Jenette. It was just a horrible, unavoidable accident that he would never be able to either undo, forget or ever forgive himself for. Yet the idea persisted, poking him in the chest, punching its cold hard finger all the way through into his heart, goading him that he deserved nothing more from her. He pushed the idea aside but it quickly took another, much sharper, turn: what if she knew it was an accident but was quite happy for him to take the blame? His steps slowed at the thought. He'd hurt her enough - physically and emotionally - during the last couple of days for her to want to strike back at him. He forced the thought away to join its predecessor; his guilty conscience might let him think that she could do such a thing but hers would never let her go through with it - Alex was whiter than white. He'd always known that and he wasn't going to let go of that belief, or her, ever again. And if she really wanted to hurt him all she had to do was tell him that she never wanted to see him again. That was what he feared the most, what he'd been trying not to think about.

It took another step or so for him to reach the, now slightly broken, divide that lay between them and he paused there for a brief moment, willing his heart to slow down; it was so deathly quiet he wouldn't have been surprised if she could hear it thumping away in his chest from the other side of the curtain. With a deep breath he pushed through the barrier for the third time in the space of a few minutes and was immediately met by the beautiful sight of Alex Drake, awake and back in the real world. He slowly exhaled the breath he'd been holding onto in what he told himself was merely an attempt to get his racing heart to slow down but more truthfully had been kept in his possession through nervous anticipation at her reaction. She didn't look angry with him but she didn't look too happy either. He didn't move any further forward, instead he hovered uncomfortably just inside of the curtain, trapped there by his own guilt. It was his fault she looked so sad; had to be. And she was so quiet too as her gaze wandered down from his face.

He suddenly wanted her to scream and shout at him; to accuse him of all the things he had done, of all the things he hadn't meant to do, of all the things his conscience had already accused him of doing - even though he could blame himself enough for the both of them in that respect. He wanted to see the fire in her, that feisty spirit that made her question him - and his actions - on an almost daily basis. But she just looked so lost and unsure, and with what looked suspiciously like tears at the corners of her eyes. He wanted desperately to step forward and hold her, hold on to her, and to make everything okay between them but he remained rooted to the spot, that little voice telling him that it wouldn't be that easy.

If, as it seemed, he'd been wrong about her hating him before then she must hate him now. If by some miracle she didn't, he doubted that whatever feelings for him that she'd been struggling with before all of this had happened would be giving her any problems just now. He'd ruined whatever slim chance he'd had with her the moment he'd questioned his trust in her. If only he had listened to that bloody tape all the way through the first time; rather than confronting her about trust he could have pursued her instead, maybe he could have even persuaded her that giving in to him wasn't the end of the world. If only he hadn't gone to her flat and listened to the rest of the tape; maybe then his joy at having her back wouldn't be tinged by the thought that, even though she'd pulled through, he'd still lost her. He knew that every time he looked at her now he'd hear her taped confession, would remember the way she had uttered his name so possessively, and he'd feel the same stab of loss slicing into him now at the thought of what could have been.

He wouldn't mention that he had listened to all of the tape. Whether she suspected he had heard it all or not, she hadn't mentioned having feelings for him at any point since the tape had appeared so he would carry on with the charade too. It was preferable to bringing it up and only getting shot down. Preferable to hearing her say that she couldn't possibly have feelings now for a man who couldn't trust her, who had blown her off for the attention of some tart who'd offered herself to him on a plate just for money. And Alex probably knew all of that; had probably known before he had. He must look as bad as he felt in her eyes. He must look like the fool he was. Nor was he going to admit that Jenette had threatened to take away the only thing he wanted in this world, that she couldn't possibly compare to the smart, beautiful, strong - if not just a tad crazy - lady in front of him but he'd let himself believe it anyway; he didn't need to look any stupider than he did already. He cleared his throat, shattering the pervasive silence that was threatening to smother him. What he really needed to do was to try and rescue what he'd had with Alex, not what he might have had.

"Bolly, I..." he started gruffly before petering out rather pathetically as her gaze resettled on his eyes. It wasn't unkind, or even accusing in any way, but it was still silent. She still looked pained. He needed to explain or to apologise to her but he'd just attempted the latter only to fail miserably. It had been hard enough to say the words, to admit that he'd been wrong, when she had been unconscious but now she was awake and staring at him so intensely with those wide curious eyes of hers, and it was so much harder to get the words out this time. His apology seemed so much more inadequate too, especially now she could refuse to accept it. But he wouldn't know where to start in way of an explanation - not one that didn't require him to admit that he'd been wrong about some things anyway. He took a small step towards her, "Alex, I'm-"

"I know," she interrupted with a whisper, the smallest of smiles finally making an appearance on her lips and reaching up into her eyes too. The sight forced all of the air out of his lungs and the combination rendered him speechless and also uncaring of how she could possibly know what he'd been about to say. She held out her right hand towards him and he stared blankly at it for a moment, his heart pumping furiously once more at the possibility that she was offering him more than just the feel of her skin against his. He searched her face for confirmation, for a sign that she didn't hate him, that she didn't blame him, that they were going to be okay. He found it in her eyes and in her smile, and he took hold of her hand, silently revelling in her touch once more and finally letting a smile of his own grace his mouth as her thumb began to rub the back of his hand, in much the same way that he had caressed hers only minutes ago. His gaze dropped to their hands, watching her thumb move gently across his skin, and he started to wonder if Sam's theory had been correct. That she had been aware of his presence. His eyes shot back up to hers at the thought and she smiled a little wider, holding up her left hand with the warrant card still in its grasp. "I heard you the first time, Gene."


End file.
